Organizational climate for innovation and creativity – a study in Swedish retail organizations

ABSTRACT

Innovation in retailing is under-investigated in academia and yet a highly relevant concern given the current changes in the retail landscape. Although retailing is often characterized by a dynamic and highly competitive environment, retail organizations are not often considered as ‘innovative,’ at least when compared with manufacturing industries, or when using existing innovation frameworks in academic literature. There are many aspects of innovation discussed in literature and a need to consider different ways of looking into retail’s innovativeness. Among them, the importance of organizational climate on influencing creativity and innovation may help explain how to enable innovation in service organizations, such as retailers. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the climate for innovation and creativity and examine how retail organizations perceive it. We applied a mixed-methods approach using an established organizational climate survey and semi-structured, one-on-one interviews regarding the innovation climate and other aspects of innovation management in the companies. The study shows that despite retail organizations still struggling to incorporate innovation on a strategic level and move beyond incremental developments in their operations, retailers score positively on being innovative regarding certain dimensions of the organizational climate survey. This indicates that retailers (especially conventional ones) could benefit from challenging current practices and moving towards becoming more active and strategic innovators since their organizational climate to a certain extent allows for it. Respondents within the organizations also express a need for better innovation support, whether it is through established structures and processes or an improvement in the current conditions of the organizational climate. How retailers could enable themselves to become more active innovators – based on what we know that retailers look more towards entrepreneurship and continuous development as a driving force rather than formalized innovation practices per se – is a potential avenue for further research.     

Patent Protection,Startup Takeovers,and Open Innovation

Abstract

Open innovation largely relies on startup innovators transferring their R&D to incumbent firms. Yet, such innovators are at a disadvantage when faced with incumbents holding patent portfolios, raising the question why do such Lilliputian firms choose to innovate? In view of this, we study the impact of patent protection on the innovation incentives of startup firms in a dynamic model where an incumbent faces a sequence of potential startups and the incumbent’s chance of winning an infringement lawsuit increases with the size of its patent portfolio. It is shown that open innovation–style takeover deals generate extra benefits for the incumbent via its enhanced future bargaining positions, a part of which accrues to the current startup as an increased bargaining share, justifying R&D activity that would not have taken place otherwise.     

The theory and practice of user‐initiated innovation

User‐initiated product innovation occurs when a firm that has invented a novel device first invests in its internal application as a process innovation and second seeks returns from its general marketing. The paper defines the nature and scope of user‐initiated innovation (UII), presents summaries of detailed case histories of its instance, and discusses its explanation and managerial implications. Three modes of user‐initiated product innovation and users’ roles in them are distinguished and three explanations of the functional locus of innovation are critically considered in terms of their explication of empirically‐derived strategies of innovation: the appropriability of benefit, appropriability regimes, and transaction costs theories.     

Exploring the role of front-line employees as innovators

This article aims for a deeper understanding of front-line employees (FLEs) and their boundary-spanning role in service organizations’ innovation processes from the vantage points of creativity and service innovation theory. It explores in particular FLEs’ processes of creativity by focusing on how ideas emerge and how these ideas are further managed in the organizations’ innovation processes. It draws on an in-depth empirical study of three units at a large spa and resort hotel. The article demonstrates how FLEs’ ideas are related to the assimilation and utilization of knowledge gained in the customer–supplier interface. Furthermore, it introduces the concept of ‘management by weaving’, which encompasses the middle managers’ roles in the complexity of leading diverse innovation processes in the service organization. By having the roles of facilitator, gatekeeper, and translator, middle managers hold the key position for letting FLEs play the role as innovators.     

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT IN THE GERMAN TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY

This article develops a conceptual framework for innovation management in logistics service providers, taking both a macro‐sectoral and a micro‐firm level perspective. Empirical data pertaining to the German transportation industry is applied in order to illustrate the current situation. In the analysis, the author distinguishes between various types of innovation: (1) product/service and process innovation, (2) market novelties, product‐range novelties and product imitations, and (3) ad hoc and planned innovation. The results indicate that despite the importance of innovation for the competitiveness of logistics service providers, innovation activities of firms in this industry and the share of innovators are at a low level compared to other industries. Only 30% of the LSP's are innovators. LSP innovation rests less on structured innovation, new product development and new product commercialization processes, instead, becomes often visible in form of technological advanced infrastructure and equipment investments. It is recommended that in the future LSP's should make more use of one or all forms of innovation activity discussed in this article.     

A cross-country comparison of the effects of institutions on internationally oriented innovation

In this paper, we probe the relationship between institutions and internationally oriented innovation. For the first time, we use Patent Cooperation Treaty statistics as a new source of national-level data on the inventive activities of internationally oriented innovators, which we refer to as “global innovators.” One third of global innovators are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We apply these new data and investigate the effects of corruption and business climate on patenting activity. It is ascertained herein that the inventive activity of global innovators has a linear relationship with institutional factors, while there is no observed relationship between the quality of the institutional environment and PCT patenting by multinational enterprises (MNEs).     

Motivations of application developers: Innovation,business model choice,release policy,and success

This study provides insights into the success of smartphone applications (apps) based on the chosen business model and version release strategy, and relates these variables to the motivations of their third-party innovators in the smartphone operating system market. The analysis is based on a questionnaire focusing on motivational factors and demographics of developers, coupled with secondary data on the apps themselves and their success. We find that apps developed due to the personal needs of the developer for new functionalities result in higher success in terms of number of downloads, whereas many of the intrinsic motivations outlined in user innovation theory do not have a significant impact on app success. Our findings imply that while some insights from user innovation theory are applicable to understanding factors that contribute to the potential success of apps, the smartphone application software ecosystem has its own dynamics, including the absence of learning effects over several apps that require further focus and more in-depth research.     

Open innovation and growth in IT sector

IT services are overrepresented among high-growth innovative enterprises. The nature of innovation in IT requires knowledge search and collaboration, which together constitute the inbound open innovation (IOI) strategy. This study analyses whether the IOI strategies in IT service firms lead to different performance effects in comparison to other service and manufacturing firms. A quantile regression on multi-country data from the Community Innovation Survey indicates that innovative IT service companies share the same benefits from increased cooperation as other innovators, while displaying a strong growth dynamic compared to others. Therefore, IT service firms’ growth differential may not be related to external cooperation and knowledge sourcing.     

R&D,firm growth and the role of innovation persistence: an analysis of Finnish SMEs and large firms

R&D investment and growth in SMEs and large firms relate in a complex way. This paper analyses what role persistence of innovation output plays in shaping that relationship. We apply a vector auto-regression model to Finnish firm-level data and summarize the lead–lag relationship and complex co-movements of R&D growth and firm growth series. We found only continuous product and process innovators to have positive associations between R&D growth and sales growth. Also the associations between sales growth and subsequent R&D growth were stronger for continuous innovators than for occasional innovators, but only for product innovators. In the case of process innovators it is the occasional innovators that exhibit a stronger association between sales growth and subsequent R&D growth. In addition, our results vary between large and small firms. We express the need for further research on innovation dynamics and growth of SMEs analysing the interactions between different innovation activities.     

基于网络效应的SNS网站用户参与动机和参与强度研究

以用户使用社交性网络服务(SNS)网站的参与动机和参与强度关系为研究目的,运用动机理论和网络效应理论,构建基于网络外部性的SNS网站用户参与动机和参与强度关系模型,选取人人网用户作为调研对象,通过问卷调查方式进行实证研究。研究表明:娱乐性动机是影响用户参与强度的主要因素;间接网络效应(感知附加功能)对用户参与动机全部具有显著影响,但直接网络效应(参与成员数量)对用户的参与动机只有局部显著影响,且娱乐性动机在网络效应和参与强度的关系中起到了中介效应作用。依据研究结论,SNS网站的运营商应在明确网络环境下的"动机—行为"理论的基础上,从鼓励用户分享、丰富娱乐资源,构建服务平台、探索新的盈利模式两个方面加强自身建设。     

Consumers as innovators in the electricity sector? Consumer perceptions on smart grid services

This article assesses the possibilities of using consumer innovation in the electricity sector, which is slow‐moving, yet faced with huge challenges and opportunities to become “smart” and “low carbon.” We study the benefits of engaging innovative consumers (“lead users”) in product, service, and business innovation in terms of (a) the capacity of lead user‐consumers to innovate in the highly regulated electricity market, (b) the attractiveness of such lead‐user generated ideas for mainstream consumers, (c) the usefulness of lead‐user engagement for companies in the energy industry, and (d) the usefulness of lead user engagement for the necessary broader societal transition processes. We conclude that consumers can stimulate industry‐wide innovation even in challenging contexts like “smart” and “low‐carbon” solutions and the highly regulated energy industry. Lead user‐consumers can also articulate societal and social responsibility concerns that are relevant for the entire market.     

Antecedents of emotional attachment of social media users

Emotional attachment has been documented to be an effective basis for consumer loyalty behaviors in many contexts; however, not much has been offered for new service formats enabled by information technology. This study explores the emotional attachment of social media users in terms of personality traits of users and websites. Drawing on literature on brand personality and brand–self congruence, this research proposes that a match between user’s individual personality and the personality traits of the digital artifacts promotes affective connection to social media websites. The social media, to which the user becomes emotionally attached, therefore becomes part of one’s self-definition and representation in the digital world. Self-expressiveness is also investigated as a motivational driver that helps users form such an emotional bond. Individuals with higher motivation to express themselves are more likely to develop an emotional attachment to social networking sites, exhibit loyal behavior, and experience a stronger effect than self-website congruence on emotional attachment. Results of this research provide support to the proposed relationships. Theoretical and managerial implications are elaborated in the discussion.     

Are champions different from non-champions?

Research on the innovation process has shown that the presence of an innovation champion—Someone who takes a personal risk to overcome organizational obstacles to innovation—is an important part of the new business development, new technology development, and organizational change processes.Champions play six valuable roles in the innovation process. They provide autonomy from the rules, procedures, and systems of the organization so that innovators can establish creative solutions to existing problems. They gather organizational support for the innovation by building coalitions between managers in different functional areas of the organization. They create loose monitoring mechanisms that allow innovators to make creative use of organizational resources. They establish mechanisms for making consensus decisions on innovations. They use informal methods to persuade other members of the organization to provide support for the innovation, and they protect the innovation team from interference by the organizational hierarchy.Some,but not all managers believe in the desirability of these championing roles.Existing research suggests that managers willing to serve as champions differ in many ways from those who are not. However, almost all of the existing research on championing has been conducted in the United States. This raises two fundamental questions: First, do champions and non-champions differ in their preferences for championing roles? Second, are these differences universal or limited to American culture?This study attempts to answer these questions by comparing the preferences for the six championing roles of individuals with championing experience and those without across 43 organizations and 68 countries. The study shows that individuals with championing experience have significantly different preferences from individuals without championing experience for five of these championing roles—building cross-functional ties, establishing autonomy from organizational norms and rules, enabling innovators to circumvent organizational hierarchy, using informal means to persuade others to support the innovation effort, and building a decision-making mechanism that includes all organization members. These differences exist after controlling for differences in the national culture of the respondents, the companies in which they work, and demographic characteristics. The results of this study suggest that differences in the preferences of champions and non-champions for the behaviors that champions adopt are consistent across cultures.     

Matching audio/video app features with young user preferences: An integrated approach

Audio/video mobile applications (apps) enable people to engage in leisure activities without time and space restrictions, which gradually changed human leisure behaviours. This study is one of the first to integrate means-end chain theory, Kano and conjoint analyses to reveal young user preferences for entertainment audio/video mobile apps. A preliminary qualitative survey with 36 young interviewees established the questionnaire items in the subsequent survey of 389 young respondents. Results show that ‘subtitle choice’, ‘resolution selection’, ‘top ranking list’ and ‘advertising mode and format’ are key attributes that directly influence young user willingness to download apps. In particular, ‘flashing banner ads’, ‘resolution ≤ 480 ppi’, ‘5 seconds to skip ads’, providing ‘subtitle choice’ and without ‘top ranking list’ is the best combination of attribute levels of audio/video apps that meet young users' desires. That is, young users prefer mobile apps with ‘resolution ≤ 480 ppi’ and ‘subtitle’ choices and expect that they can skip flashing banner ads in 5 s. Providing a top audio/video ranking list, however, is unnecessary for young app users. The findings can help marketers and app designers develop effective app designs and advertising strategies for young users to expedite the adoption of entertainment audio/video apps.     

Marketing innovation: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the development of ‘marketing innovation’ defined as the implementation of new marketing practices involving significant changes in the design, distribution, promotion or pricing of a product or service. We conduct a systematic review to provide conceptual, methodological and thematic guidance for scholars interested in studying marketing innovation. Our findings suggest while marketing innovation is often merged with the dominant technological focus underpinning product or service innovation, there is a growing trend to consider the innovation potential offered by the development of new distribution channels, branding strategies, communication types or pricing mechanisms. Digitisation, a key driver for marketing innovation, enables new communication methods, branding strategies, offering designs, and transaction settings. There is a growing trend to focus on cocreation, service-dominant logic and user community perspectives.     

基于可信度计算的分布式共识合作感知算法

对于分布式的认知无线网络,由于不存在融合中心节点,次级用户节点之间的合作感知往往 采用信息交互的渠道进行,其中一种基于共识合作的感知机制受到广泛的研究,但这种机制 在鲁棒性方面存在一定的缺陷,当恶意节点存在时,其错误信息将影响局部的感知判决结果 ,为此,提出一种基于感知节点可信度的共识合作感知机制。在该机制中,各节点对邻居节 点的可信度进行计算,并把计算出的可信度值发送给其他节点,通过对各节点可信度的累加 计算,最终计算出各节点的可信度,各节点以此决定是否与其邻居节点合作以及如何合作。 仿真结果证明,在恶意节点存在的情况下,该算法在感知性能和收敛速度上都较未改进算法 有不同程度的提升,减轻了不可靠节点对合作感知结果的影响。     

Innovation and re‐innovation: A role for the user

Various models of the innovation process, from the “traditional” to the more recent, are examined in this paper which focuses on the implications for the role of the user in the innovation process. The author points out the need for greater recognition of the importance of users as active participants in the innovation process. In many industrial sectors user‐need specification and product development involve more than simply a passive role for the user and innovatory success is associated with active user involvement in product specification, design and development.     

Are Intellectual Property Rights Detrimental to Innovation?

Intellectual property rights are legal constraints that limit conditions of entry in industries where incumbents are innovators. The set of legal constraints is the same for all industries, and there is no consideration of the possibility that the externalities created by entry in a given industry may not necessarily be negative for the incumbent, or that the incumbent's R&D expenditures might actually be detrimental to new entrants. We show that one unique set of legal rules can foster innovation in some industries and be detrimental in others. Our model is illustrated by case studies from the Information and Communication Technologies industry.     

Public system usability analysis for the valuation of cognitive burden and interface standardization: A case study of cross-ATM design

Humans are unable to effectively handle machines that have poor interface and interaction patterns. The Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is one of the machines that is most frequently operated by a wide spectrum of people. Hence, it is common to apply Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) technology in the design of ATMs. User–ATM interaction, however, has barriers such as a user’s working memory limit, lower literacy level, or lack of awareness and access. Moreover, the diversity of interfaces hurt user motivation, perception, and experience significantly. For example, each bank has its own ATM design targeting its customers only and, thus, when clients of other banks come across such a machine, they suffer from cognitive burden and commit many errors. To this end, we conduct an analytical survey of ATMs used in Pakistan through user analysis and heuristics analysis. We figure out the influence of design diversity and user perception on ATM users’ cognitive stress with the cognitive walkthrough analysis on the survey. We also uncover a realism-usability gap by reviewing the sampled ATM screens from the viewpoint of HCI heuristics. Finally, we suggest the guidelines on the cross-ATM design, characterized by the standardized fast-cash menu and the fail-safe mechanism for novices. This study demonstrates that users are reluctant to switch out of their comfort zones, due to learning costs and a lack of motivation. Therefore, we should design public systems in a very standardized way, which becomes more crucial for a user’s cognitive relief as interface and design patterns are becoming more diverse in our daily lives.     

Strategies towards innovative services: findings from the German service landscape

The specifics of services seem to prohibit a simple transfer of innovation strategies from the manufacturing to the service sector. To better understand what works, successful strategic service innovators and their strategic approaches have been the focus of this study. To do so, 80 service innovators in Germany have been monitored over a period of one year. By analyzing them, according to the basic strategies they follow (low cost, differentiation or mixed emphasis) and the dominant design of their service delivery system (information technology-based, people-based or mixed approach), this paper provides an understanding of the strategic approaches followed by successful service innovators. Our findings propose that there is a fit between the complexity of service offerings and variety of the interaction approaches by successful service innovators. In sum, we argue that for an appropriate design of service innovation strategy both managers and researchers need to go beyond the traditional distinction of low cost and differentiation strategy.